Monday, April 4, 2011

Nice Start

Yeah the Cardinals have tortured San Diego over the last decade. I'm not talking about just the 3 NLDS losses to those guys, where San Diego dropped 9 of the 10 games played. Since the start of the 2006 season St Louis was 14-4 in Missouri against the Padres. This includes the infamous rain-delayed Sunday game in 2008 when Colby Rasmus hit a 3-run bomb to stun Heath Bell and the Padres.

Nothing ever seems go to right at Busch. Which is why winning this Opening Weekend series was so sweet. San Diego has not won the season series from the Cardinals since 2006, which incidentally was the last time the Padres won a series in St Louis. In fact the Padres had won 2 series there the last FOURTEEN YEARS until this weekend. Here's a little tidbit: the last 3 times San Diego has won a series at Busch the Padres have made the playoffs.

I'm not telling the Front Office to start printing those ducats, but that's a nice early sign for the season to come isn't it?

We all know how important Ryan Ludwick is to the 2011 team, and the Padres could not have picked a better park for the season to start off in than Busch. Ludwick's history there is well-known; if there's one place on this earth to get his confidence high early in the season it's in St Louis. Ryan's 2 for 10 line might look a lot like last fall, but his 3 walks mean his batter's eye has returned, and he hit several balls hard during the series, albeit it in tough luck (most notably the sixth inning Sunday).

We wondered how the offense would look. San Diego scored 16 runs in the series. Yes they got shut out yesterday, but they still scored 16 runs in the series.

Most importantly, the pitchers held up their end of the bargain. The team limited St Louis to 8 runs total, and held Pujols to 1 RBI (and 2-13 overall). Dustin Moseley pitched far, far better than I expected he would; he pitched well enough to win, but Cardinal starter Jamie Garcia was just a little bit better.

That's a lot of reasons to be happy with a 2-1 start to the season. Now the Padres come home to face the Giants, Dodgers, and Reds on their first homestand of the season. I'll be at the game tomorrow, hope you are too.

Programming Note: Tuesday's Podcast will be cancelled. Following the game I have an 8:40 softball game, so there' s no way I'll be in any shape to prattle on for 30 minutes. We'll pick up again on Thursday.